The Tourist Company are back with their first single since 2016's Apollo, and "Conflicted/Restricted" arrives accompanied by a powerful video.
The clip was directed by Farhad Ghaderi, and it follows a group of teenage boys over the course of a night that will alter their lives forever.
"The video explores the idea of the inevitability of disaster," the director tells Exclaim! "Questioning whether tragedies are inevitable or not, playing with the ambiguity of what seems to be a naive and dangerous game between boys. Personally, I wanted to explore themes like toxic masculinity, and gun violence, and root them in within the social behaviours of teens in suburban North America."
The idea came from real life events experienced by people Ghaderi knew on Vancouver Island, and ultimately asks the question of who and what are to blame when tragedies strike.
"As a new dad, this video concept wrecked me. Being on set I kept seeing the characters as dystopian future versions of my kid, and the story quickly took the form of all my worst fears of being a parent," the band's Taylor Swindells added.
"'Conflicted/Restricted' is about a profound frustration with the inability to affect circumstances beyond your control, and this nightmare fits. This tension is what we feel in the world and our best hope is to have grace for each other in the recognizing we're all facing our own tragedies and we all need help."
Watch the sadly and scarily believable scenario play out in the video below.
The clip was directed by Farhad Ghaderi, and it follows a group of teenage boys over the course of a night that will alter their lives forever.
"The video explores the idea of the inevitability of disaster," the director tells Exclaim! "Questioning whether tragedies are inevitable or not, playing with the ambiguity of what seems to be a naive and dangerous game between boys. Personally, I wanted to explore themes like toxic masculinity, and gun violence, and root them in within the social behaviours of teens in suburban North America."
The idea came from real life events experienced by people Ghaderi knew on Vancouver Island, and ultimately asks the question of who and what are to blame when tragedies strike.
"As a new dad, this video concept wrecked me. Being on set I kept seeing the characters as dystopian future versions of my kid, and the story quickly took the form of all my worst fears of being a parent," the band's Taylor Swindells added.
"'Conflicted/Restricted' is about a profound frustration with the inability to affect circumstances beyond your control, and this nightmare fits. This tension is what we feel in the world and our best hope is to have grace for each other in the recognizing we're all facing our own tragedies and we all need help."
Watch the sadly and scarily believable scenario play out in the video below.